Legal Disclaimer:
I do not own Sierra, Valve, Half-life, Bungie, Gearbox, Microsoft and/or Halo and other related companies whatsoever. I wish I did, anyway.
Hidden Mantis: Dangit! My computer monitor blew! O_O
The details? While I was away one weekend, a freak thunderstorm suddenly reared its ugly head and a lightning bolt's static electricity destroyed the monitor! *anger at nature*.
Kidding. I love nature. 3.
But I still can't get over the damage. T^T
Anyway, I hope this next chapter pleases you.
Date: September 29, 2552
Freeman walked down the Autumn's winding, derelict pathways. Adrenaline clouded his mind; all he wanted to do is escape the ship.
Gordon walked down a dark hallway, illuminated by a lone beacon, vainly trying to warn anyone about the incoming invasion, its light only falling into blind eyes.
A lone Grunt was stationed in the hall. Gordon partially saw its large back in the red light, already knowing that the hunching alien was there. It tried to shoot Gordon, only succeeding in making glowing holes in the Autumn's walls. Gordon killed the alien, making holes in its tank with his assault rifle. Blue-green blood illuminated the hall.
(Note: Contrary to videogame and movie lore, if you shoot a .50 cal sniper round in a propane tank, you won't get an explosion [Info courtesy of MythBusters]. You'll just get holes in your tank. You might, however, get a satisfying explosion if you shoot a .50 cal napalm-tipped bullet at a methane tank, which is precisely the type of ammo in the Halo pistol.)
He walked down the next, brighter walkway. A firefight was ensuing, Marines versus some Covenant he couldn't see. A wall was blocking his view.
He decided to flank the enemy alone.
He turned right, expecting the rest of the Covenant to fight the Marines. At about the same time Gordon was about to turn left, he saw a Grunt's face up close.
The Grunt paused for a while to survey the event. It paused too long; Gordon grabbed his crowbar and whacked the alien in the skull. Blood and brain-matter covered his crowbar's curved top.
After moving the alien to one side, Gordon peeked through the Grunt's passageway. He saw an Elite and some other Grunts, all focused on the party of Marines. He hid and grabbed his pistol to conserve his rifle ammo: 4 magazines worth 60 bullets each. He knew he should kill the Elite first, and that the incendiary rounds would blow its shields out. He just didn't know when.
Date: May 16, 2002
The Master Chief was shuffling through the darkest recesses of Black mesa. He had seen odd things, odder than the Covenant he was used to fighting against.
Headcrabs, headcrab zombies, houndeyes and a bullsquid, their names pretty much described what they were.
The creatures weren't troublesome; they moved too slowly for John's reflexes and his personal shields made short work of their attacks.
After travelling and battling for an hour in the research facility, the Chief decided to go exploring, looking behind every door he could find. Who knows what he could find?
An unwary scientist, Dyson Poincare, was inside an empty maintenance closed, curled up in a ball. He didn't bother to lock; he might see an unwanted visitor face-to-face during the attempt.
Suddenly, the metal door creaked open. He shut his eyes, waiting for the inevitable.
"Please stand," said a rough but calming voice.
To Dyson's surprise, he saw a man in what seemed to him was a green, bulky HEV suit. He was tall. Taller than himself by half-a-foot.
"I'm John," the Chief said, an outstretched right hand presented, a Glock pointed away in the left.
Gordon wielded his scoped pistol. He cocked, aimed for the Elite's head, held is breath to lessen movement – and fired.
The Elite felt its head jerk to one side.
As Gordon expected, the alien's shield appeared. He shot again.
The Elite then felt a second punch right into its noggin. It turned to face its attacker, pointing its plasma rifle at him.
Gordon shot for the third time, this time causing the beast's shield to shatter under all the combined stress of the Marines' attacks and Gordon's pistol rounds, having just enough inertia to pierce the alien's forehead.
As the Elite fumbled lifelessly to the ground, Gordon thought the Grunts were going to run. To his surprise, another Elite appeared from behind the enemy squad, this time concentrating its fire on Gordon.
Gordon hid behind the plasma-scorched wall and switched quickly back to his Assault Rifle.
The Grunts focused their fire on the Marines while the Elite continued to shoot at Gordon.
Realizing that the Covenant divided their fire, the Marines took this to their advantage and fired on the unwary Elite while dodging the Grunts' fire. Meanwhile, Gordon was returning the enemy squad-leader's fire.
In no time, the second Elite slumped to the ground, knocking and pinning down one of the Grunts. The other two ran.
The Marines rendezvoused with Gordon in the junction. One of them took out his pistol and shot the pinned Grunt in the head. The smaller alien slumped with the larger one.
"Ma'am! Permission to join your squad!" one of the Marines yelled.
"Permission granted," said Cortana.
"Allies are important, you know," she said to Gordon over his personal comm.
Gordon nodded.
"So you're a supersoldier from the future?" asked Dyson.
"Yes."
"And you were teleported here, along with all those aliens?"
"Yes, but probably from different dimensions and times,"
"And you're trying to stop all this mess, then get back to your timeline?"
"Well, that's the general idea," John replied for the last time.
"I see," Dyson said flatly.
I think it's safe to reveal this kind of info to this civilian, John thought. No one's going to need the knowledge anyway.
This man's military is intriguing, Dyson, too, thought for himself. Do they not have ethics and morals? Modifying a human being?
Unknown to Master Chief, someone did listen in to their conversation. Someone who had importance to this dimensional switcheroo.
As Gordon walked along and shot the remnants of the last Covenant squad encounter, he once again continued down the path ahead. It would lead him to a stairway; he could see from a sign.
The moment he saw the stairwell and some Marines, – "Covenant! In the landing above us!" Cortana told Gordon, alarmed.
Sure enough, he saw two Elites returning fire to the Marines at ground level. They had the advantage of higher ground.
"It would be disadvantageous if you would just return fire at those Elites," Cortana informed Gordon. "But it would be risky to just run up those stairs."
Before Cortana said the second statement, Gordon already decided. He would run. Sprint was a more appropriate word.
During his early days at Black Mesa, he would race with Barney Calhoun, the security guard, to do Dr. Kleiner's errands, getting his keys that get locked in the good doctor's room. Apparently, this happens very often. And this was where Freeman learned to use ventilation shafts to infiltrate buildings.
He sprinted up the stairs, spraying the Elites in front of him with bullets. This was good enough to stun them for a split second, sliding behind some steel beams. A blue bolt hit where his head was half a second ago. The firefight continued.
"I'm gonna try to get us out of here," John said, "so stay behind me at all times."
"I know how to shoot a gun. I've been trained," said Dyson, trying to reason out of his embarrassing predicament.
Master Chief saw this as an awkward moment; the man he was trying to protect was trying to get a gun.
Dyson was less typical-looking than most scientists. He had a large build, wasn't bespectacled, his eyes were brown and his rough, wild mass of hair, a darker shade of bronze than most vampires have, pointed everywhere.
"Like I said," Dyson muttered, "I've trained. I'm second to Gordon Freeman, the man they sent to start this whole mess," he said angrily.
"But I don't think he's the one to blame," Dyson finally said after a moment.
Although it was an odd event, he let Dyson get the Glock. If it was all that it took to make the scientist feel safe, it was fine. And at the unlikely moment that friendly fire occurred, Master Chief's shields would protect him.
The two climbed up some maintenance stairs, trying to forage for some supplies they can use for survival. The Chief went up first. What he saw put him off guard.
A headcrab zombie and two headcrabs were waiting for them in the top.
One of the headcrabs lunged at Master Chief; Dyson was still climbing.
John punched the alien away, dealing immense damage to the creature's carapace. It already died before it hit the ground 10 feet below.
Seeing the fight ahead, Dyson did what he had to do: shoot.
John, in the heat of battle, wanted to tell Dyson to shoot at the headcrabs first, then the zombie's head, but instead Poincare did something very radical. He shot at something behind the zombie.
The Master Chief's reflexes were like giving living people the ability to slow down time, in real time. Because he was taken aback, he didn't see the barrel behind the aliens. He saw the bits of shrapnel and embers fly towards him and Dyson. The aliens flew away from the explosion's epicenter, but not towards the pair.
Dyson saw a very odd thing at that moment. Where the shrapnel hit John's suit, he saw that a glowing shroud, almost like a see-though, glittery golden blanket, appeared. It was like nothing that any human ever saw; fireworks that happened in small scale, but were following the contours of the human body.
"Now, let's get this over with," said John, trying to hide the fact that he missed some detail to the battle. He was slightly embarrassed, but the suit didn't let him show it.
Continuing down the burnt flesh hallway, they received their just rewards: a few hand grenades and a Spas-12 with 18 shells.
"I'll get the shotgun," said Dyson.
"No," John playfully retaliated. "You already got dibs on the Glock."
It didn't seem obvious at first, but a friendship was being formed in the dark hallways of Black Mesa.
Multiple firefights flared Gordon's blood with the still flowing adrenaline. His heart raced. He already went past the Cryo Bay in what seemed like a heartbeat. He went through the Autumn's maintenance shafts to evade Covenant patrols and had charged up his HUD using the ship's wiring, and now he was facing a large squad of Covenant (two Red Elites and a bunch of ragtag Grunts), and all that was between him and them was a barrier studded with grenades ready to use.
Gordon unpinned three and threw them at the aliens one by one. The last one exploded right into an Elite's face. The panic-stricken enemies retreated, just before being mowed down by a flanking Marine squad.
"That's the last lifeboat airlock," Cortana said. "Climb aboard before it launches!"
As the last few Marines got in, Gordon went last. The airlock hissed behind him, then he strapped himself down.
"We're disengaged, going for minimum safe distance," the lifeboat pilot informed the crew.
Gordon finally saw the Pillar of Autumn in full view. It was a large, odd-shaped spaceship. It looked more like a rifle than a vessel.
"We're gonna make it aren't we?" asked one Marine. "I don't wanna die out here."
"Look!" Cortana said to Gordon. And Gordon did look. It was a ring.
The odd thing about this ring was it had plant life all over its inner side. It was almost like Earth as Gordon imagined it from space, but inverted and cut down.
"What is that thing, Liutenant?" one Marine asked the pilot.
"Hell if I know, but we're landing on it."
"The Autumn!" screamed one Marine. "She's been hit!"
"I knew it," Cortana muttered audibly to herself and Gordon. "Keyes is going in manual!"
"Heads-up everyone, this is it," the pilot informed the crew for the last time. "We're entering the atmosphere in five…"
Hidden Mantis: Wow. That took a long time.
I hope I didn't trouble anyone.
Merry Christmas to all of the readers out there! I hope and pray that I can make chapters faster, AND get the focus to actually finish them on time.
Fact: My little brother, aged 8, can drive. Big whoop.
R & R please!